When you start a blog, you’re incredibly excited and you start to really cram out the content.I can remember when I started my first blog, I had time stamped about four articles and I was writing more and more.The first few articles were published and I waited…waited…waited…And no traffic came.So I tried some more articles and I waited…The same thing happened.Now, when I started this blog, I was brand new in blogging.Since then, though, I have determined what my problem was: no one could find me.

But, not only could people not find me, search engines could not find me.When you’re running any kind of website, whether it is a forum, blog, or content site, you want the search engines to find you.They bring the traffic that is going to click ads and sign up for affiliate offers far more than any other kind of lead to your site.I realized this and went in search of some information to try and increase my ‘findability.’I realized that I needed to build links to get people to my blog.However, I also needed to use the right keywords.

What I pieced together was a series of steps that I felt would increase my ‘findability.’They’re not full proof as nothing in this world is, but they are an effective method in increasing the number of backlinks you receive as well as increasing your keyword rankings in the search engines.Take from this list as you please.However, here are some methods to increase both:

Join a couple of forums in your niche and put a link to your blog in your signature.However, not only are you going to put the link in your signature, you’re going to use the anchor text (keywords) that you want to rank for on the search engines.

When you write a blog post that is really good, send an e-mail to the authorities in your niche and let them know that you wrote it.Sometimes, they are looking for ideas and they’ll link back to you for giving them an idea.

Another thing to do when you write an awesome post is submit it to an authority blog in your niche for a guest blog post.By doing this, you’re getting on their blog, but you’re using the keyword YOU want rather than the one that they think you may want.

Comment a minimum of ten times a day on different blogs.I found that if I commented on different blogs at least ten times a day, I would start to become a part of the communities and people would know who I was.

Consider holding a contest.By holding a contest, you’re going to determine how they can win.If you’re link building, tell them that to be entered in the contest, they need to link to you with the keyword you want.My advice, though, is to have a couple of keywords rather than one.

Finally…Consider having a budget and going out to purchase some links.If you purchase the right links, you can really get the ‘findability’ that you want as well as the ranking in the search engines.But, do it the right way else suffer the great Google Ban!

The trick to getting good backlinks and strong keywords is to be in control.Pick a few keywords that you want to rank for.Also, don’t JUST link to your homepage.If you wrote a very cool article, link to that article with a very specific (or not so specific) keyword.By doing this, you’ll get traffic to individual blog posts and not just the main blog.

All in all, what you want to do is make it so people and search engines can find you.By using the above steps, what you are guaranteeing is that you are increasing your backlinks and, on top of that, making sure that the keywords you rank for in the search engines are the ones that you want to maximize traffic.By doing this, you’re going to really increase your exposure to the blogosphere.Try it out…See what happens.

Jacob is an avid guitar player as well as a biology major in college with hopes of becoming a professor. When not blogging on The Webmaster Blog, he is over at his political opinion blog.

Zac, yes and no to link exchanges. They can work, but they really are not going to provide that much link juice because you are giving something away as well. I use link exchanges to get my name out there, but not for ranking in search engines, ya know? But yes, they work for traffic and letting people know who I am.

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